Psychedelic Assisted Therapy, Indigenous Wisdom & Integrative Methods

This introductory talk draws on over 30 years of experience in the fields of therapy and indigenous wisdom, and offers a perspective shaped through both lived experience and ongoing inquiry.

A central focus will be the meeting point between indigenous modalities—particularly the use of expanded states as forms of medicinal consultation—and contemporary therapeutic approaches. We’ll explore what it means to bridge these worlds in a way that is grounded and respectful, drawing on the depths of traditional knowledge systems while also engaging the clarity and insight offered by modern psychotherapeutic frameworks.

Lila will also offer a brief introduction to The Five Pillars of Medicine, a framework that emerged through her initiation (“thwasa”) in a traditional medicine lineage in South Africa. It is rooted in a natural biomimicry—looking to enduring natural systems as a map for how we understand and work within these processes. There will be space for conversation, including Q&A and space to hear the specific interests in the group.

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ABOUT LILA

Lila’s work is rooted in decades of relationship with medicinal plants and Indigenous healing traditions, shaped by initiation as a Sangoma in the Shona tradition of Southern Africa. Her practice braids ancestral knowledge, direct experience with the natural world, and visionary awareness, cultivating sensitivity to the seen and unseen. Through attunement to plant, mineral, microbial, animal, and systemic intelligence, it awakens a process of listening, pattern recognition, and inner reorganisation. It opens the capacity to move between different ways of knowing, and apply what is revealed.

Her academic background spans Anthropology, Linguistics, Philosophy, and Psychology, with an Honours degree in Transpersonal Psychology and Philosophy, and Diploma in Integral Coaching.

At its core, her work is in service of our remembering—restoring connection to the deeper intelligences that shape us, and to the capacities for awareness, healing, and participation that are inherent to being human.